Walk the Walk (Sam Durant)
2018 - Installation (Installation)
44 x 33 inches
Native Art Department International
The neon sign Walk the Walk (Sam Durant) overlays a Walk/Don’t Walk Sign crosswalk sign onto the text “You Are On Indian Land Show Some Respect.” The sign asks viewers to not walk on Indigenous lands without respecting it, and, switching between a walking person icon in white and a raised hand icon in red, redirects their actions. This work by Native Art Department International signals a reminder that we–the audience and institution–are located on and occupy traditional territories. The work appropriates and twists white artist Sam Durant’s You Are On Indian Land Show Some Respect (2008) in response to his work Scaffold (2012) installed in 2016-7 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The structure resembled a high-design jungle gym, with a miscellany of stairways that visitors climb to reach a massive platform. The participatory public sculpture intended to commemorate the seven capital punishments that took place between 1859 and 2006, including the largest mass execution in United States history, in which thirty-eight Dakota Sioux men were hanged, in 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota. The sculpture ignited protests among Dakota Sioux activists in Minneapolis, fuelled not only by anger about the cultural appropriation of murder by the artist but also by the insensitive resonance with the current suicide rate among Native American teenagers–the highest of any population in the United States. The protests eventually lead to the removal and dismantlement of the sculpture. The sculptural remains were handed to Dakota elders who buried the material and the Dakota Oyate now retains intellectual property of the work. Anchored in the long history of appropriation in the arts, Walk the Walk (Sam Durant) engages with complex and recent discussions about cultural appropriation in the art world as recent controversies have unfolded such as Dana Schutz at the Whitney Biennale, Sam Durant at the Walker, Luke Willis Thompson for the Turner prize. Namely: How can artists responsibly use images that are not their own, especially when those images are tied to the history and trauma of another culture? And how can museums display such work while respectfully engaging with marginalized communities?
Native Art Department International is a collaborative project created in 2016 and administered by Maria Hupfield and Jason Lujan. Their work–spanning panel talks, collective art-making, performances, theater, sculpture, and video–has often addressed critical issues relevant in the art world while integrating art historical and references from Native American and Canadian art. Within this context, they have examined systems of support and created strategies to challenge narratives that essentialize and instrumentalize artists’ practices based on their identities. More specifically, their practice explores the potential of collaborative and collective ways of working and producing art to challenge the dominant (art) historical canons and rectify the absence of overlooked narratives and perspectives.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » KQED
The 2024 Puppy Bowl: Team Fluff, Team Ruff Go Head-to-Head | KQED Skip to Nav Skip to Main Skip to Footer upper waypoint The Do List The 20th Annual Puppy Bowl Pits Team Fluff Against Team Ruff — and Everyone Wins Mark Kennedy, Associated Press Feb 7 Save Article Save Article Failed to save article Please try again Email Some of the adorable participants in this year's Puppy Bowl...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Weekly Picks: Indonesia (28 January - 3 February 2019) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Weekly To Do January 28, 2019 Top Picks of Indonesia art events in Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya from 28 January – 3 February 2019 Baron Basuning Studio, together with Galeri National Indonesia, invites you to NOOR, a solo exhibition of Baron Basuning’s works...
© » KADIST
Exhibition dates: February 24 – April 9 Opening: February 24, 6-9pm Hours: Weds – Sat, 2-7pm or by appointment Borrowing its title from James Baldwin’s 1985 essay on the Atlanta Child Murders of 1979-81, Evidence of Things Not Seen , this solo exhibition amplifies notions of presence and absence, sound and silence, and visibility and invisibility in the work of Hank Willis Thomas ...
© » THEARTNEWSPER
Space race fakery, a CIA manual and a 10ft man: group show in Florida reveals the art of deception Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Art Basel in Miami Beach 2023 review Space race fakery, a CIA manual and a 10ft man: group show in Florida reveals the art of deception Boca Raton Museum of Art exhibition explores the evolution of illusion through a contemporary lens Torey Akers 8 December 2023 Share A fibreglass Merma (2022), incorporating a video projection performance by Dominique Bousquet, is part of Tony Oursler’s Creature Features installation Tony Oursler As Miami Art Week winds down, the Boca Raton Museum of Art is keeping the magic going with an enchanted offering: Smoke and Mirrors: Magical Thinking in Contemporary Art , a thematic exhibition that seeks truth through the lens of deception...
© » KADIST
Lucas Blalock
2011Compositions such as Tree on Keystone (2011) become hyperreal versions of their real-world equivalents...
© » KADIST
Vandy Rattana
2009Vandy Rattana’s Bomb Ponds series was made following a transformative encounter with the craters left over from 2,756,941 tons of bombs dropped by U...
© » DAZED DIGITAL
Bringing you the best of Berlin Fashion Week AW24 Womenswear | Dazed â¬…ï¸ Left Arrow *ï¸âƒ£ Asterisk â Star Option Sliders âœ‰ï¸ Mail Exit Fashion Feature From Sia Arnika and SF 1 OG, to Shayne Oliver’s Anonymous Club, here’s everything that went down at the German city’s fashion fair 10 February 2024 Text Elliot Hoste Berlin Fashion Week AW24 35 It might have been founded 17 years ago, but Berlin Fashion Week is a relative newborn in comparison to its Big Four siblings...
© » KADIST
Beyond the End With: Derek Córcoran (ecologist) , Christy Gast (artist) , Giorgia Graells (biologist) , Émilie Hache (philosopher) , Geir Tore Holm & Søssa Jørgensen (artists) , Fabienne Lasserre (artist), Myriam Lefkowitz (performer), Carla Macchiavello (art historian), Camila Marambio (curator), Maria Luisa Murillo (artist), Laura Ogden (anthropologist), Amanda Piña (choreographer & artist), Alfredo Prieto (archeologist), Maria Prieto (urban and biodynamic farmer), Bárbara Saavedra (ecologist), Carolina Saquel (artist) and Sofia Ugarte (sociologist)...
© » KADIST
Sawangwongse Yawnghwe
202122022021, Yawnghwe Office in Exile by Sawangwongse Yawnghwe belongs to a body of work made in response to the Myanmar military coup that began in February 2021...
© » THEARTNEWSPER
An acerbic but highly readable view of the British art world Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Books review An acerbic but highly readable view of the British art world The critic and former curator Julian Spalding holds forth on his dislike of conceptual art and his love for Beryl Cook Georgina Adam 11 December 2023 Share True to form, Spalding makes no secret of his vehement dislike of conceptual art...
© » KADIST
Rachel Rose
2014A minute Ago starts with a hailstorm pelting down unexpectedly on a quiet beach in Siberia...